Always (32 page)

“I don’t want a professional. I want you.”

“I doubt I could do it justice.”

“On the contrary,” he said, taking a step toward her. “You’re the only one I know who could do it justice. No one will see this book the way you’ll see it. When we were kids, you could always read beyond the words I’d put on paper. You could envision exactly what I imagined.”

For one terrible moment, Emily wavered. There was truth in what he said, but he was also very clever at using their past to play on her emotions—emotions that now pulled her in two directions. She understood his need to salvage whatever they could of their damaged relationship. In fact, she shared that need. Childhood bonds such as theirs were not easily severed. Never mind that she couldn’t make him love her the way she wanted him to, she could hardly bear to imagine going through life without his friendship. During her time spent volunteering at the soldier’s hospital in Baltimore, she had seen the tragic results of countless amputations. Arms. Legs. Vital parts. But no part as vital as a heart.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” she said, “and it’s not going to work.”

“What’s not going to work?” Ross took another step toward her, and Emily felt the urge to step back, but she resisted it. “What do you think I’m trying to do?” he asked.

“You’re trying to make up for... for what happened the other day, but it’s not necessary.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, it was a mistake. People make mistakes all the time. We’re perfect examples of that. We made the same mistake twice, but it won’t happen again.”

“It didn’t feel like a mistake to me.”

“Johanna might not agree.”

“I told you, I don’t love Johanna. I’m not going to marry her.”

“Oh? Does that mean you’ve broken your engagement?”

Ross was caught short. She’d maneuvered him right into a corner, and he felt like punching a wall. No, he hadn’t broken his engagement. Despite his efforts to get Johanna alone, he’d been circumvented at every turn. The day before last, as he’d walked her to the dress shop, she had been so gushing and happy about preparations for the wedding, he hadn’t found the heart to tell her the truth right there on the street. Later, he’d gotten tied up at the newspaper office until nine o’clock.

Last evening, he’d fully intended to get it over with, but was chagrined to discover upon arriving on her doorstep that Mrs. Davenport had planned for all of them to go to the theater. He couldn’t end his engagement while in public and in the company of Johanna’s parents as well as two prominent businessmen and their wives.

“No, I haven’t broken my engagement,” he admitted. “Not yet, but I’m going to.”

“When? At the altar?”

The anger in those stormy blue eyes was lethal, but Ross was feeling a bit short-tempered, too. He’d finally been able to talk himself into believing that his jealousy over Karl was ill-founded, only to come face to face with him upon arriving here tonight. Not only was Emily working for Karl every morning, now they were spending time alone after hours and planning to share meals in public.

“If I say I’m going to break the engagement, I’m going to break the engagement,” he said through set teeth, “but maybe you should explain exactly what’s going on with you and Karl.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed as if trying to read his mind, then she shook her head and jabbed a finger at him. “Oh, no you don’t. You can’t change the subject. I’m not going to answer that.”

“Fine,” he said, slapping his manuscript down onto a table. “Don’t answer it!”

“No!” Dashing to the table, she snatched the parcel and shoved it at him. “Don’t leave it. I can’t illustrate for you.”

“Why?”

“Because we can’t see each other anymore. We can’t be lovers and we can’t be friends. We can’t even speak on the street. Otherwise, it hurts too much. It gets too complicated. For both of our sakes, there has to be a clean end to it.”

Ross didn’t move. She’d said a lot of things in the heat of anger before, but she’d never said anything like that. “You don’t mean it.”

“Yes.” Again, she shoved the manuscript at him. “Yes, I do. Take it.”

He looked down to see that her hands were shaking. Whether she meant what she said he wasn’t sure, but right now, it was obvious that she believed it. Cautiously, he spoke. “Too complicated, you said. A long time ago, we promised to stick by each other always. Not just until things got complicated. We were only kids then, but I thought you meant it. Maybe it would have been easier for you if I’d stayed dead. If I hadn’t come back at all.”

At his harsh words, her face paled. “How can you say such a terrible thing?”

“Promises are easy to keep when we’re kids and things are going smoothly. It’s when we grow up and things get complicated that it really counts.”

She stared at him.

He took a step back, preparing to leave. “Just do this one thing for me, Em. Read it. Then if you still don’t think you can illustrate for me, I won’t ask anything else of you again.”

Ross didn’t give her another chance to protest. Instead, he turned and left the shop. When he closed the door behind him, though, he had to stop to get his bearings. He could feel his heart knocking in his chest like he’d just finished a hundred yard sprint.

For the briefest of seconds, he’d seen in her eyes what he’d hoped to see—that she still cared for him—but it was a mixed blessing. Emily never did anything halfway. When she believed in something, she believed one hundred percent. If she fought, she fought hard; if she loved, she loved forever. Yet that sort of single-minded commitment was fraught with risks. If she was hurt, the wound cut deep. Convincing her that he could be trusted not to hurt her again wouldn’t be easy. It had been a mistake to come here before he’d had a chance to end things with Johanna.

“Judging by the look on your face, I assume you two haven’t managed to settle anything.”

Ross had forgotten about Karl. He stood less than five feet away, leaning back against the brick front. He appeared to be observing the traffic on the street as he cupped his hand to light a cigar.

“And I suppose that’s just fine with you,” Ross said.

Karl’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Not at all. Your concern that I’m stealing away your woman is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous now, and it was ridiculous all those years ago. She’s always been yours, even if you were too busy chasing after Johanna Davenport to see it.”

“I never said I thought you were stealing her.”

“No, you didn’t, but it’s as plain as the nose on your face.” Karl gave him a smirk. “Or perhaps I should rephrase that to say it’s as plain as the nose on
my
face.”

For a long moment, Ross eyed the telltale bump that marred Karl’s profile. His anger with his boyhood friend had been misplaced from the beginning, and deep down, he’d known that all along. “I suppose I should say I’m sorry.”

“That would be a good start.”

Ross walked over to lean back against the building next to Karl. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and let out a rueful sigh. “I never should have hit you.”

Karl blew a frothy smoke ring. “Agreed.”

“I’ve been acting like a jackass.”

“Double agreed. Would you care for a smoke?”

“No, thanks. I’m on my way to see Johanna.”

“She’s not a good match for you, old pal. She may be delicious to look at, enough to get any man’s pecker up, but marriage... that’s going a bit far, if you ask me.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do a few months ago.”

“Before Emily came back to town, you mean.”

“Yes. Now, I can’t think of anything worse. How did I get myself into such a mess?”

“Sex.”

Ross frowned.

“Not sex?” Karl asked when he didn’t reply.

“To be honest,” Ross said, “I was trying to be practical.”

“Practical? Are you sure it wasn’t sex?”

Ross thought about his perplexing lack of reaction when he’d kissed Johanna during their picnic. “Yeah, I’m sure, but that’s beside the point. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that there’s more to all this man-woman stuff than a good roll in the hay anyway.”

“Really? Are you positive?”

Ross let out a dry laugh. “You just wait, old pal of mine. One of these days, you’ll wake up to find that some woman has gotten a hold of your heart so tight, you won’t be able to think straight. You won’t be able to eat. You won’t be able to sleep. It’ll be pure hell.”

Karl squinted at him doubtfully, then shook his head and took a puff from his cigar. “It sounds like pure hell, but it’ll never happen.”

“We’ll see,” Ross said, taking his hands from his pockets and straightening.

“Where are you going?”

Ross felt satisfied that he had finally taken care of unfinished business with his friend. Now, though, he had much more unpleasant business to take care of.

“I’m going to see Johanna.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ross’s confrontation with Johanna went even worse than he anticipated. It was clear by her surprised expression when she came to the door that she hadn’t been expecting him, but she recovered quickly, donning her brightest smile and society-hostess manners.

Her poise and etiquette were probably the most valuable skills she’d learned from her otherwise ineffectual mother, Ross thought as he led her to the front porch swing. That poise, however, utterly disintegrated when he told her he wanted to break their engagement.

“No,” she gasped, “I just can’t believe it. I
won’t
.”

“Johanna, I’m sorry,” he said. And he meant it as he placed a hand on her arm. “I honestly believed that our getting married was the right thing to do, but I see now that we don’t belong together. We never did.”

“No!” she repeated, yanking her arm away. “This simply cannot be! The wedding is little more than a week away! Do you know how many people we’ve invited? I’ll be humiliated!”

“It’s better to break off now than to find out later that we made a mistake.”

Johanna shot up from the porch swing. Even though she had not been expecting company, she wore an elaborate yellow dress trimmed with purple ribbon. It was a frock Ross didn’t remember seeing before. He watched the hem of her hoopskirt bob angrily as she paced the length of the wooden porch.

“I simply won’t have it! I won’t!” She stamped her foot, then whipped around to pin him with a savage glare. “It’s another woman, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

Ross almost denied it, then stopped. Now was not the time to embark on a whole new run of lies. “Yes,” he said carefully, “but she’s not the reason you and I don’t belong together.”

“Pah! Not the reason? How can you sit there and tell me that you’ve been consorting with another woman and that she isn’t the reason you’re breaking off our engagement? That’s the most ludicrous—”

Ross stood. “If you’d listen to yourself, you would realize exactly why we don’t belong together. You’re more concerned about being embarrassed than you are about breaking this off. You’re not in love with me any more than I’m in love with you.”

“
Love?
” She stared at him as if he’d lost his senses. “What’s love? Something silly that wears off in six months, that’s what! Love isn’t the reason people get married, people get married to make good matches! They get married to have well-bred children! They get married to secure a good future!”

“I used to think that, too, but I’ve changed my mind.”

“Because of that trollop!” Johanna strode the short distance between them to face him. “You fool! You’re throwing away your future because of some dirty little—”

“That’s enough, Johanna.” Out of the corner of his eye, Ross saw a parlor curtain flutter from behind a closed window. Either the maid or Johanna’s mother had apparently sensed trouble in paradise, but he knew neither would be bold enough to intrude. As for Malcolm, he wasn’t home. That was just as well. Ross preferred to deal with him separately.

“Who is she?” Johanna demanded.

“That’s not important.”

Her lower lip quivered. “You unspeakable cad.”

“You have a right to be angry, but after you’ve had a chance to calm down and think about it—”

He saw her move, maybe even in time to stop what was coming, but he didn’t try. He absorbed the sting of her slap with thinly held restraint.

By now, her features were contorted with rage, and Ross thought that if his adolescent fantasies of her hadn’t been dashed before this, they surely would have been now. “After all I’ve done for you! And now this! Papa was right about you from the beginning, but I wouldn’t believe him. When you came back from the war, I told him you’d changed. I told him about the articles you published. It was me who got you your job at the paper. Me! If it weren’t for me, you’d still be nothing but a—”

“Low-class Irish hack?”

She drew back, looking aghast. “I never said any such thing!”

“No, but you were thinking it. You’ve always thought it. Why don’t you do us both a service and consider yourself excused from doing me any more favors?” He turned to leave, glad to be done with the biggest mistake of his life, but she caught him by the sleeve.

“Wait! Ross, you don’t understand. Wait. Please.” Just that fast, her tone had gone from bitching shrill to soft and pleading. Reluctantly, he paused.

“Is it... is it because we haven’t—” She cut off and began again. “Has that woman allowed you intimate favors? Is that how she lured you away from me? Because if it is, we don’t have to wait any longer. I only wanted our coming together to be special.”

Ross looked back at her. “No, it’s not that.”

Her expression had undergone a drastic change to match her manner. Vanished was the shrew, and in her place was the heartbroken fiancée. Her round blue eyes were wide and shimmering with welling tears. “But I love you, Ross. We’ll have beautiful children together.”

“No,” Ross said. She’d changed tactics so quickly and deftly, he was amazed. It was a formidable skill, one she’d no doubt developed while trying to manipulate her tough-as-nails father all these years. But part of her ploy was working. Ross felt new pangs of guilt that kept his feet planted where they were. He doubted that Johanna had any idea what real love was, and that made him feel sorry for her.